The subject invention relates to the dispatch of resources, and more particularly to the dispatch of field service engineers to remote sites.
The general problem of dispatching of resources can be broken down into three parts; the identification of locations requiring the resources, the proper selection of resources for assignment to the identified locations, and communication of the assignment to the selected resources. One solution to all of these aspects of the problem has been based on the use of "dispatchers"; individuals who receive request for service, typically over the telephone network, and dispatch resources to provide the requested services, typically using two-way radio communication. A typical example would be a dispatcher for a radio dispatched taxi fleet.
Systems have been developed which address portions of the problem discussed above. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 3,694,579; to: McMurray; teaches a system for transmission of digital location codes and a signal identifying predetermined municipal services (e.g. fire, robbery, medical, etc.) to a plurality of relay receivers which in turn communicate with a data center for dispatch of the appropriate services (e.g. fire department to fires, police to robberies, etc.).
While possibly effective for its intended purpose, it should be noted that the McMurray reference is inherently limited to relatively small regions; both by the need for a large number of relay receivers distributed over the region to be serviced and, more importantly, by the need to have publicly available services such as police and fire. That is, McMurray provides at least a limited solution to the problems of identifying locations requiring services and communicating the need for services to the resources, but has only an extremely limited capability to select resources by sending the fire department to fires, the police department to robberies, etc.
Another approach to the problem of resource dispatch is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,492,820; to: Kennard et al. This patent teaches a local system attached to a user's telephone for transmitting a selected message to specified telephone numbers in response to manual, remote, or pre-timed automatic operation. The system of Kennard et al. too provides at least a partial solution to the problems of identifying locations requiring services and communicating that need to resources for providing those services, but is of only very limited use for selecting the appropriate resources for assignment. Thus, for example, if the emergency number for the police department were to be changed, it would be necessary for each user of a system as taught in Kennard et al. to individually change the specified telephone number. Further, in situations such as the dispatch of field service engineers to various remote cites, the system of Kennard et al. would be essentially unusable since the designation of various field service engineers to respond to request for services must be constantly adjusted to accommodate vacations, changes in personnel, etc. To achieve this with the system of Kennard et al. would require that the information stored at each location be separately updated.
The system of Kennard et al. is specifically taught as a replacement for another system (not further identified) wherein signals transmitted over the telephone network cause a computer to display an associated file, and a system operator will summon help after review of the file by calling up to three numbers.
In general, known systems for the dispatch of resources, while possibly effective for their intended purposes, do not adequately address the problem in the context of situations, particularly such as the dispatch of field service engineers, where different resources may be designated for different locations, either on the basis of geographic distribution of the sites, or on some other basis, and where the designated resources, and their priority for dispatch, may vary with time.
Thus, it is an object of the subject invention to provide a method and system for the dispatch of resources, and particularly field service engineers, to sites as needed.
It is a further object of the subject invention to provide such a method and system which is suitable for dispatch of resources to widely distributed remote sites.